Nostradamus

January 15th 2010 06:36

Nostradamus (14 December or 21 December 1503 – 2 July 1566), was a practicing physician, astronomer and astrologer who turned his hand to prophecy later in life.

Nostradamus wrote is prophecies in quatrains. Prophesising was punishable by death during the Spanish Inquisition, so he was forced to be cryptic to avoid persecution. Some say he predicted the French Revolution, the birth and rise to power of Hitler, the assassination of John F. Kennedy, the Great Fire of London (1666) and the September 11th terror attacks.

The Science Channel takes a closer look at Nostradamus more famous predictions, could Nostradamus really see the future, or do their vagueness and lack of dating make it easy to quote them selectively after every major dramatic event and retrospectively claim them as "hits"? Read the full article here.

Atomic Bomb

Near the gates and within two cities
There will be scourges the like of which was never seen,
Famine within plague, people put out by steel,
Crying to the great immortal God for relief.

It's an accurate description of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

With that said, this verse is accurate because it cheats a bit on the specifics. Critics charge that it's so vague that it could also be used to describe a whole host of wartime atrocities during any of many wars that took place between Nostradamus' time in the 16th century and today ... or even the future.

Hurricane Katrina

The cities of Tours, Orleans, Blois, Angers, Reims and Nantes
Are troubled by sudden change.
Tents will be pitched by (people) of foreign tongues;
Rivers, darts at Rennes, shaking of land and sea.

Did he really mean NEW Orleans? Hmm...The shaking of land and sea might describe the hurricane (well, the shaking of the sea would). Could the people with foreign tongues be aid workers from other parts of the world, or other parts of the country?

But what are Tours, Blois, Angers, Reims and Nantes doing there?

Pre-Katrina, this prophecy was originally thought to refer to France.

Great Fire of London

The blood of the just will commit a fault at London,
Burnt through lighting of twenty threes the six:
The ancient lady will fall from her high place,
Several of the same sect will be killed.

The Great Fire of London obliterated nearly all of medieval London ("the ancient lady") within the old Roman walls. It occurred in 1666, and only six deaths were recorded (hence "the six" in the second line), though commoners' deaths may not have been recorded at the time.

The fire, which started in a baker's shop, burned for three days straight. If only someone had passed along a copy of Nostadamus' book, maybe Londoners might have known it was coming.

The French Revolution

"From the enslaved populace, songs,
Chants and demands
While princes and lords are held captive in prisons.
These will in the future by headless idiots
Be received as divine prayers"

The peasants ("the enslaved populace") rising to power, the aristocracy taken down and beheaded (the "headless idiots," now "princes and lords ... held captive in prisons"). In another verse, the "great wall" falling is said to mean the storming of the Bastille.

Is it possible that Nostradamus saw the coming of a peasant uprising through completely non-astrological or occult means, but through his own eyes as he saw the contrast between aristocrat and commoner in 16th-century France?

September 11th, 2001

Earthshaking fire from the center of the Earth
Will cause tremors around the New City.
Two great rocks will war for a long time,
Then Arethusa will redden a new river.

If you read this verse before Sept. 11, you might assume it referred to an earthquake or volcanic eruption. Earthshaking fire, tremors, rocks warring (in other words, continental plates colliding), but who really knows.

Back when Nostradamus wrote those lines, skyscrapers like the Twin Towers, jumbo jets like the ones that hit them and cities like modern-day New York were probably unthinkable and unimaginable, so if he foresaw these events, would he have even known what he was seeing?